Phoenix Is a Great City for Single Women, Apparently

Courting Disaster is Jackalope Ranch's weekly column of dating horror stories, observations, how-tos, and more by Katie Johnson. Names of ex-boyfriends, past hookups, and bad blind dates have been changed to protect the guilty.

Where are all my single ladies at? On their way to Phoenix, apparently.

A recent report released by NerdWallet listed the the 10 Best Cities for Single Women, and whether you're surprised to hear it, Phoenix was ranked at number nine.

While I would normally not find myself on a site that supplies financial tools and assistance, because my idea of balancing a checkbook involves resting it on top of my head, I was intrigued to see what exactly qualified a city to be ideal for us spinsters.

NerdWallet looked at three things for its list. First, there was the availability of singles. Though I know plenty of people who hardly have let a wedding band get between them and their hard-on for another person, I personally prefer not to be someone's a la carte, so this was a stat I could get on board with.

The site looked specifically at the ratio of unmarried men to unmarried women, implying that cities with lower ratios had higher numbers of available men. Couple of problems with this. In addition to not factoring in the sexual orientations of the sexes (case in point, it listed San Francisco as the number one city for single ladies -- San Francisco), it also didn't take into account something that any woman who's been on the dating circuit long enough knows to be true.

Men are like public bathroom stalls. If you ever find yourself waiting in line at the women's restroom, only to realize there's one lone stall no one's bothering to claim, just know that there's a reason. There's a reason why women are risking a UTI for another stall to become available. Similarly, if a man has gotten to a certain age and has yet to settle down, a girl has to wonder.

Phoenix has an almost even ratio of 104.97 women to 100 men, but I feel I have to cut that number into a least half due to sexual orientation, lack of shit-togetherness, and simple unfuckability. Sorry, guys, but just because that shit-splattered toilet stall is available doesn't mean I'm going to claim it.

Next on NerdWallet's list of qualifiers was "ease of meeting people." They factored this in by the number of bars and restaurants per 1,000 residents and the Walk Score of each city. Unsurprisingly, Phoenix's Walk Score was D+ material, 38.3, but when you apply that to dating, I'm not complaining. That just means fewer dates for me to piece together the fact that you don't have a car. Think about it, if we lived in a city with a good walking score, it could be years before I figure out that you're two DUIs away from ever driving me off into the sunset.

I was pretty pleased with our bar/restaurant score, 3.69, which was not the highest, sure, but also not the lowest, and as any poor sucker who's ever dated me can tell you, I consume food like an obese child fresh out of fat camp.

The last category for this singles-friendly cities list was affordability, which boiled down to unemployment rates and the average cost of a cheap date: "two movie tickets, a 12-inch Pizza Hut pizza, and one 1.5-liter bottle of Livingston Cellars or Gallo Chablis or chenin blanc wine." Wait, hold the phone, Loveline. Why the hell would I want to live in Poor Man's Paradise? Let me be clear, when I say I consume food like child fresh out of fat camp, I mean a foodie fat kid. A foodie fat kid who escaped from a gourmet fat camp.

I may have few certainties in my life, but I know for damn sure that I never want to receive a marriage proposal at an Olive Garden. I have to say, much like the character Adam on Girls, this NerdWallet list has left me with mixed feelings.